Afterwards

"They have come--you're safe now, thank God!"

"We're all safe, thanks to you," she answered him with shining eyes; and as he threw his empty revolver aside she held out both her hands to him and he clasped them joyfully.

"They have come--and so soon! I never dared to hope they would be here before to-night at earliest!"

"Nor I--but they are here!" He released her hands and turned to greet the rest of the little garrison, who, having heard the clamour, had realized they were saved, and came pouring in to hear the story of the night's encounter.

* * * * *

At the same moment a fierce hubbub arose in the courtyard as the Bedouins realized that they were verily in a trap. Some of them, gathering their robes about them in undignified haste, managed to scramble over the wall in the confusion and so make good their escape, for the time at least; but the majority were neatly cornered; and though they fought magnificently, as was their wont, they realized only too soon that they were outnumbered; and in a comparatively short space of time the fight was over.

* * * * *

Just as the rising sun flooded the desert with superb pink brilliance the whole party, rescuers and besieged, met in the courtyard.

Both Anstice and Garnett had been in the thick of the last affray; and the soldier who was apparently in command of the expedition took advantage of the breathing-space to congratulate the defenders on the splendid defiance they had offered to their foes.

"We heard the row quite a long way off," he said, "and hurried for all we were worth, thinking we'd be too late if we didn't hustle. But from the vigour of your defence it seems to me we might have taken it easy."

"Good job for us you didn't," returned Anstice rather grimly. "We'd got down to our last round--another five minutes and we'd have been wiped out."

"Whew!" The other man whistled. "Pretty close call, what? Lucky for you we did hustle, I see."

"Yes--but can you explain how it is you're here so soon? We hadn't dared to look for you till to-night or to-morrow morning."

"Oh, that's easily explained. We fell in with your messenger--Sir Richard Wayne, isn't it?--on our way back to Cairo. We were returning from a little punitive expedition"--he smiled pleasantly--"and were only too glad to set out on another jaunt. We get fed-up lounging about barracks, and these affairs come as quite a God-send in the wilderness."